L.A. County holds mass burial for unclaimed Angelenos

In a simple but solemn ceremony, the cremated remains of 1,464 people were laid to rest in a mass grave at a Boyle Heights cemetery on Wednesday.

The plaque atop the plot had no names, just the year of death: 2010, as the county gives relatives three years to claim a body.

The Rev. Chris Ponnet led a multidenominational service at Los Angeles County Crematory and Cemetery, with prayers in various languages and the Christian, Jewish and Muslim religions represented. He concluded the annual rite of passage by reciting the words of St. Francis of Assisi: “It is in dying that we are born to eternal life.”

The county has interred unclaimed remains every year since the late 1800s.

Many of the dead were homeless. Some were also nameless. Others had families who declined to take the remains because they couldn’t afford to give their loved ones a proper burial.

Albert Gaskin, a caretaker at the cemetery for the last 30 years, remembers a time when ashes of the unclaimed were interred without ceremony. He and other staffers used to buy the flowers themselves simply because no one else did.

Over the years, however, the county has stepped in to pay respects to its dead.

Ponnet believes some of those put to rest Wednesday may have been patients at County-USC Medical Center, where he serves as chaplain.

“It’s sad that people die under circumstances that leave them alone,” he said. “But this plot here also gives me hope that our society will not just discard remains but honor them.”

Don Knabe, the Board of Supervisors’ new chairman, said by providing a burial, the county was exercising its role as a safety net for the community. “I don’t know about you,” he said. “But it’s hard for me to conceive not having anyone around you at the end.”

Cindy Kahn used to work with homeless patients at a behavioral health facility in Panorama City. After the service, she knelt by the grave and carefully arranged the rose petals that had been strewn over it. “It’s a way to say thank you for people that, I’m sure, touched other people’s lives.”

County Department of Medical Examiner-Coroner operations director Craig Harvey said many of the dead had come through his office, and he attended the burial to see the process through to the end. “It’s just simply the thought that somebody should acknowledge these folks, to be there, to let them know they matter.”

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Gaskin isn’t fazed by the starkness of what he does every day. “Each year, I say I’m going to retire, but I always stay because I love my job,” he said. “I feel like I’m helping someone else that’s unfortunate.